The Body in the Dumb River

by George Bellairs

  She paused to take breath.

  ‘Was the woman in court, the common gipsy-looking woman…was she…was she…’

  Chloe bent and put her arms round her sister.

  ‘Don’t, Elvira. Don’t. You’ve been through enough…’

  ‘Leave me alone! I insist on knowing. Was the woman James’s mistress? I knew he was unfaithful to me. I’ve known for a long time.’

  Chloe interrupted again.

  ‘How can you say such a thing? You’ve never known it at all. It’s not true. It’s not true, is it, Superintendent?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs. Cornford. I must admit that he had a woman helping him with his hoop-la…’

  Mrs. Teasdale shuddered and her teeth chattered at the very name.

  ‘… She helped him, particularly looking after the business when he came here at week-ends.’

  ‘She was his mistress! I know it! I knew he was spending his money on someone else. We, hardly able to keep body and soul together, and he… It was wicked…’

  She stopped dead.

  ‘I shan’t go to the funeral.’

  Littlejohn said he’d better be going, as he hadn’t had any sleep the night before on account of the journey. He urged Mrs. Teasdale to retire as well, as she hadn’t slept either.

  ‘I shan’t go to bed and I shan’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t even pay my respects to such a deceiver and seducer…’

  He let himself out, leaving the two women arguing about it.

  Funeral! Divorce! Adulterer! Street-Woman! The words were flying round his ears like bullets when he closed the door of the dark shop, which smelled of paint, turpentine, cheap cigars, sackcloth, and stale leather.

  Outside, the streets were empty. The last bus was passing the door, the Royal Oak was closed and there were shadows, cleaning up, on the opaque windows. The fish-and-chip shop at the end of the block was almost empty, emitting a hot smell of stale cooking fat. The only figure in the deserted square was a solitary drunk, offering to fight anybody who would take him on.

  8

  Talk of Divorce

  After seeing off Littlejohn from Ely, Cromwell made his way to Tylecote. The day was fine and a breeze had sprung up. The floods were falling and at almost every house along the route, women were drying out their belongings and men shovelling the mud and refuse from their houses and gardens.

  He reached Tylecote at three o’clock. People were working like ants in the village street, tidying up or exchanging experiences about the damage. There had been no school and the children were enjoying themselves, slopping about in the water in gumboots. Some even had bare feet and were paddling; others were sailing boats in the shallows.

  Cromwell found Martha Gomm was living in Tylecote still and assisting her landlady to clean and dry out carpets and rugs and swill out the silt from the downstairs rooms. Mrs. Southery was in a highly nervous state. She confided to Cromwell that she didn’t know what she’d have done without Martha Gomm.

  ‘She’s forgot her own troubles and taken on mine. Never will I say a wrong word about her nor listen to one, either.’

  Cromwell was wearing a cloth cap. It seemed more appropriate in the circumstances than the bowler hat in which he usually did his work. He looked free and easy and Mrs. Southery took to him at once. He gave her a hand moving furniture about and carrying buckets here and there.

  ‘Did you know the pair of them weren’t married?’

  ‘Not till they found him dead. If I’d known and turned them out, I’d never have forgiven myself. A girl like Martha is good for any man, wedded or not.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s at my sister’s in Fetting, two miles along the road. My sister’s house is on dry ground; it’s higher than here. Martha’s gone to get some bedding. Everything feels damp, even if the water hasn’t touched it… I don’t know however I’ll get over this.’

  ‘We’ll soon fix you up. A good cleaning up and some warm fires and you won’t know it’s happening.’

  Mrs. Southery expressed her doubts, but didn’t argue. They were too busy. Cromwell was smoking his pipe and cleaning the bare boards of the living-room with a mop and a bucket of hot water.

  ‘She’s here now…’

  Martha Gomm was pushing an old bicycle along the garden path. There was a huge bundle tied on the carrier and she held another under her arm. Mrs. Southery introduced her to Cromwell.

  ‘He’s a friend of Mr. Littlejohn’s.’

  Martha’s cheeks were flushed from her exertions, which she seemed to be carrying out without much interest. She moved like something automatic. She looked at the room and then cast a grateful glance at Cromwell.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Mrs. Southery went upstairs to unpack the clean bedding and left the two of them together.

  Martha’s hair still hung long and lank, framing her pale oval face. She looked tired out from labour and grief and only held herself upright with difficulty.

  ‘Sit down and talk to me, Miss Gomm. Where’s the tea things? I’ll make some.’

  Cromwell carried on with the job in spite of her resistance, finding the necessary things and spreading them on the bare boards of the table. She had brought in, along with the rest of the stuff, a biscuit tin filled with provisions and took out scones and butter and added them to the drinks. Then she laid a tray for Mrs. Southery and took it upstairs to her. Cromwell waited for her to return and then they sat together. They ate and drank in silence for a minute or two.

  ‘Feel like talking to me a bit?’

  She gave him a friendly look. After all, he had almost alone created some order out of the place, which was now quite homely again, in spite of the bare floors.

  Dusk was falling. Outside there was a chatter of voices, pails rattling, water swishing about. The local volunteer firemen were operating a small pump to get rid of the water in the low-lying places. They seemed quite jolly about it now that the rain had ceased. One was keeping up his morale by shrill whistling.

  ‘It’s getting dark. We’ll have to bring in the carpets and things off the clothes lines as soon as we’ve finished tea.’

  ‘Have you any idea who might have wanted to kill Mr. Teasdale?’

  She looked at him blankly for a moment and he corrected himself.

  ‘I mean Mr. Lane…’

  ‘No.’

  She ate a scone listlessly and passed him the plate, inviting him to help himself.

  ‘He’d no enemies here or among the fairground fraternity?’

  ‘No. Everybody liked him. He was cheerful and ready to give anybody a hand. Perhaps it was his bein’ so small, too, among so many big men on the fairs made them always ready to help him. Some of them seemed to treat him like a boy. They even defended him against the bullies who came along. I know what a lot of them would want to do to whoever killed him.’

  She didn’t seem sorry for herself at all, nor did she show any sign of tears. All the pity she had was for the little man, her companion, whom someone had killed.

  ‘It was wanton. That’s what it was. Wanton, to kill a man like James.’

  ‘How did you get mixed up with the fairground business?’

  ‘My parents died and I lived with a stepsister of my father’s till I couldn’t stand it any more. I stuck it till I was sixteen and then I left them. They’d got me a job in a glove factory which closed down, and when I was out of work my aunt kept taunting me with being an expense to them. I ended up as a sort of waitress in an hotel near Brightlingsea and while I was there, I met my husband. He was with the fair. I fell for him and he invited me to join him and live in his caravan. I said not unless he married me, which he did. I told the rest to Mr. Littlejohn. Do you want to know, too?’

  ‘No, he told me about you. Your husband died, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes… Hadn’t we bet
ter be getting in the things from the garden? It’ll be damp out there at dusk.’

  They hauled in the heavy carpets and rugs and the rest of the paraphernalia. They were all still damp and they stowed them in the scullery. Now and then, Cromwell added another question.

  ‘Do you know that James Lane wasn’t killed here?’

  ‘What do you mean? His body was found in the river.’

  She stopped at her work and stood facing him, her hands on her hips, her large eyes questioning.

  ‘He was murdered somewhere else and brought here. Why would anybody do that? Why not leave him wherever the crime was committed?’

  ‘That’s an easy one. It was to make it look as if I did it. As if we’d had a row and I’d killed him. Somebody must have mistaken me for a gipsy or something and thought I was up to their tricks. Or the tricks people say gipsies do. Personally, all the gipsies I’ve met at fairs are very decent. They’d never think of shedding blood. I didn’t kill James. I’m not that sort. Specially with a man like James. If he’d wanted to get rid of me, he’d only to say so and I’d have gone. But he didn’t.’

  They went on with their work. She seemed to be thinking hard as they folded the carpets.

  ‘How do you know he didn’t die here?’

  ‘Medical evidence. To put it simply, he died before he’d had time to digest the tea he ate at Basilden.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I thought so. He said when he left, that he’d telephone me from Basilden and ask how things were in Tylecote. If there wasn’t going to be a fair, we’d make arrangements and perhaps meet somewhere else. He never rang me up. He was to telephone the police station three doors away and ask Clifton to bring me to the ’phone. He didn’t do it. He wasn’t one for going back on his arrangements.’

  They finished their work and returned for another cup of tea. Upstairs, Mrs. Southery was still busy in the bedrooms, bumping the furniture and throwing things about.

  ‘Did Lane ever talk of marrying you?’

  She put down her teacup.

  ‘Sometimes. He said if he could persuade his wife to divorce him, we’d get married. He said he’d feel more settled and he wanted always to be with me. He’d got tired of going up north every week to keep up what he called the deception.’

  ‘When did he say that?’

  ‘A time or two, but it always ended in us talking about his family and how it might affect the future of the girls. I told him often enough that I was content with things as they were.’

  ‘But he wasn’t? He liked this life better.’

  ‘He said he did.’

  ‘When was the divorce last mentioned?’

  ‘Before he left me last week-end.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said his wife was getting suspicious, he thought. He hadn’t said anything to her, nor had she. But he felt somehow she was always watching him and one day it would all come out. I asked him not to tell her himself. If she was thinking things, I said, he’d better let her speak of it.’

  ‘And he promised?’

  ‘He said he’d leave it for the time being, but that, sooner or later, he’d got to have a showdown. He was coming round to the idea that the girls were settled and that if his wife divorced him, she’d come out of it all right. In fact, he said, people would pity her and sympathise with her and that was what would suit her.’

  ‘You’d have married him?’

  ‘It would have been nice to be settled down with a man like James. But what’s the use of talking about it now?’

  She rose and quickly gathered the tea things and took them in the scullery. He could hear her beginning to wash up and went to join her.

  ‘I’ll wipe the dishes.’

  She smiled for the first time.

  ‘Quite domesticated, aren’t you? Have you any family?’

  He told her about his wife and girls and about Littlejohn and how much he enjoyed his work.

  ‘Did Lane ever say what his wife would do, if he told her about you?’

  ‘He said she’d probably refuse to divorce him just out of sheer spite. Even if he paid her good alimony, it wouldn’t change her mind. They weren’t happy, but the thought of him finding happiness elsewhere would make her more determined than ever to oppose it. She despised him, he told me, but she wouldn’t release him on any account.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Well, he said, in that case, he’d just stop going home. Just send her the money, but not make the trips north.’

  ‘Was all this his talk lately?’

  ‘Yes. He’d only started to get properly fed up with the situation over the past few weeks.’

  ‘Why?’

  She took the towel from him, straightened it, and hung it to dry over a wooden rail near the sink. She was evidently making up her mind about something and Cromwell guessed before she spoke.

  ‘Is there a baby on the way?’

  She didn’t move a muscle or even blush. She just stood there, patting the sodden towel into shape.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh…next Spring.’

  ‘Did he know?’

  ‘I told him. I couldn’t do anything else. I’m not one for keeping my own counsel with a man like James. I’m not sorry. Even now, I’m not sorry. He’s left me something to remember him by. I have to look at it that way.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He was glad. It might have been his first. He said that settled it. He’d get his freedom some way and we’d be married. He said a fairground was no place to bring up a baby. We’d give it up and buy a shop.’

  Another shop! Poor Jim Lane! Not content with making a complete mess of one attempt at running a shop of all sorts, he was now planning to start another.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. About his misery in his other shop. But this time he’d have had me with him and I wouldn’t have let him down or despised him. We’d have made a go of it.’

  Somehow, Cromwell’s co-operation in her duties had brought them together, created an understanding. He was sitting on a chair in the middle of the floor and she was leaning against the sink, her hands on either side of her gripping the rim. They might have been old friends, and there was interest and vitality about her again.

  ‘And that made him want to make a fresh start and cut away from his old life?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you think he was seeking an opportunity of telling his wife and getting a divorce.’

  ‘Not exactly. You’ve no need to think he told her last week-end when he was home. He promised me he wouldn’t until I said he could. I even told him we could go on as we were. After all, I’ve lived among this sort of thing half my life. People don’t bother about illegitimate children like they used to do. The child would have his father with him…or her…and that was something. Half the kids of that kind you meet at fairs don’t even know who their fathers are. Their mothers don’t know, many a time, either. But this was different. I was content if he kept on going north, but came back to us. But he wouldn’t have it. He was sure it would be a boy and he swore it should have a better chance than he had. Now, I don’t know about all that. I don’t even think about it.’

  ‘You’re sure he didn’t speak of this when he was last at home?’

  ‘Quite sure. Before he left me for the last time, I just said to him, “Remember, you promised not to say anything yet”. He promised again, but he was getting impatient about it. I said he could tell his wife when we’d settled what we were going to do in the future, and not before.’

  ‘Did anyone else know of all this?’

  ‘No. I didn’t want anybody to know until we’d got everything decided properly. I don’t know why I’ve told you. But you’ve been so decent about everything and it’s easier to talk to you about these th
ings than to Mr. Littlejohn. You see, he didn’t help me with the washing up…’

  She actually laughed, as though, for a moment, she’d forgotten her plight and her grief and returned to the normal things of life for a brief time.

  ‘Oh, if he’d wiped the dishes for you, you’d have found him just as easy to talk with. He’s one of the best.’

  ‘I know he is. He was very kind to me, but you didn’t expect me to start telling him about babies with everybody rushing in and out and the floods running in at the front door. You’ve caught me at the right moment…’

  To have someone sympathetic to talk to seemed to have lightened her spirits considerably.

  ‘What are you going to do now, Miss Gomm?’

  ‘Martha’s the name, please. You are my friend.’

  ‘Yes. Well, Martha, what next?’

  ‘He even thought of that. We won a thousand pounds once on the pools. He opened a banking account for me in the Post Office. We always filled in a pools coupon every week, but that was the only time we had any real luck. I didn’t want him to put it in my name, but he insisted. We were partners in the business and there it is. There’s over a thousand pounds in it now. That will see me through.’

  ‘You know he had a banking account of his own with a fair sum in it?’

  ‘Yes. He did well on the fairs. He wasn’t the fairground kind, and that somehow attracted people. They were even waiting for us to turn up at some of the fairs. He was greeted like an old friend and people used to come and take a hand at the hoop-la just for the sake of seeing him and having a word with him. He was a witty sort and used to cheer people up.’

  Very different from the James Teasdale of Basilden, from all accounts. A failure, a dud. His new life must have suited him. And now that happiness was just round the corner, someone had…

  Cromwell put on his coat and offered his hand to Martha Gomm.

  ‘Well, Martha, good-bye for the present. I must get back to Ely. I’ve booked a room there and I’m off north to meet the chief in Basilden tomorrow. I’ll have to tell him what you’ve told me. You won’t mind?’

  ‘No. And thank you for the help you’ve given us. You wipe dishes very nicely.’